Solar sales is an industry that lends itself very well to remote work. There is really no requirement for centralized offices or storefronts, as solar equipment is not something the consumer walks in off the street to browse. That means forward-thinking solar companies have already embraced decentralized workforces, and, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, that trend is likely to accelerate. 

The major benefit of remote work is cost savings. There is no reason for a solar sales team to need dedicated office space 8 hours a day, five days a week. And there is even less of a need for the installation teams and techs that spend most of their time on the road anyways. So, with that in mind, why take on the enormous monthly expense of a commercial lease?

But while going remote does offer some major benefits, particularly to keeping costs down, it also comes with some unique challenges. The greatest of those challenges is ensuring a dispersed team can still communicate, share information, and access support as easily as they could in a central location. That’s almost impossible using traditional office tools, but it’s actually incredibly easily using one type of modern software – a customer resource management platform. 

 

How a CRM Helps Solar Teams Maximize Success from Anywhere

A CRM is an ideal tool for remote solar companies because it’s a web-based platform designed specifically to enable sales organizations while also knocking down information silos and making information sharing far easier. High-end CRM platforms offer tools to optimize essentially all areas of a solar company’s operations, but the following four are particularly important for remote work. 

Lead Management and Sales

Your prospecting and sales processes drive your revenues, so it’s incredibly important that your sales team has access to the tools they need to succeed. A good solar sales CRM platform provides your remote salespeople with exactly that – giving them 24/7 access to your company’s complete lead database and all the relevant information they could possibly need on any prospect, all from the comfort of their desks at home, or even right on their smartphones. 

That means your team can capture leads from anywhere and enter them into your system in a matter of a few taps or clicks. It means they can make sales calls from anywhere with complete access to all prior information on that prospect, their needs, and their previous interactions. And it means that they can then plug notes and information back to the system as prospects move through the process towards becoming customers. 

Integrated Scheduling

Fully integrated scheduling tools mean that every member of your team can synch their Gmail or Outlook calendars with your CRM, and that read or write access to those calendars can be given to those who need it in order to male cross-team scheduling simple and easy. A salesperson that closes a client can easily access the schedules of your installers and techs to find out who’s available and nearby to the new customer, and then plug in the times and places for future site visits along with all the relevant purchase data. Installers can likewise leave notes and information on their visits and installations right within the scheduled events or add them to the client files within the CRM. Integrated scheduling tools, like the ones included with CRMDialer, make scheduling dispersed remote teams as easy as it would be if they were all in the same office together. 

Communications

Clear lines of communication are of crucial importance whenever a company’s staff is dispersed, and a good CRM ensures that those lines always remain open. Standard communication tasks like daily email can be easily brought within the CRM through full Gmail and Outlook integration, but there are many other tools also available to improve intra-team comms. CRMDialer, for instance, comes with a built-in internal chat and team collaboration platform, giving your team access to many of the same features they’d get from popular options like Discord or Slack, all without ever having to leave the CRM. 

CRMDialer also comes with a complete cloud-based call center that provides access to an industry-leading power dialer with a rich set of calling features. That means your team can enjoy the benefits of an enterprise-level phone system from home, or even on their smartphones when on the road. 

 

These are just a few of the ways a full-featured customer resource management platform like CRMDialer can facilitate better, more efficient operations in your remote solar industry. For a complete list of everything, the platform can do to help you boost sales and minimize costs, visit CRMDialer.com today.